Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I had a fun trip into New York City yesterday for a taping of the Martha Stewart Show. I was invited by Etsy Press to be in the audience for an all-Etsy audience, for her Etsy Show to air on Thursday, April 26.

I took the train from New Haven, CT to Grand Central Station, and took a taxi to my first stop, where I purchased some special buttons that I use in many of my fabric flowers. I was on West 39th Street in the heart of the Fashion District.

From my first stop, I walked to Hyman, Hendler and Sons, the oldest ribbon shop. This was a treat. I didn't get a picture, because the outside of the shop was under scaffolding. From there I walked and walked, browsing through the beautiful ribbon and fabric shops- there are so many! Walls were covered with ribbon, lined with trims, and stocked with every button, sequin and rhinestone imaginable!

I could have stayed in those shops all day. In fact, I'm planning a day to go back to spend more time, but I had to get over West 26th Street for the taping.

When I got over to the studio, we waited under Martha's awning. I met several great crafters that were just as excited as I was to be there.

Jennifer makes beautiful hand-felted items from wool. She raises her own sheep and hand shears them, dyes and spins the wool, and then makes gorgeous skeins of yarn, adorable little gnomes and fairies, and animals. She made these two puppies for Martha, which are made to look like Martha's own two dogs:

How cute are they!? I was so excited when Martha walked over and Jennifer was able to give them to her. I wish I could have taken a picture of Jennifer while she was talking to Martha, but we weren't allowed to have our phones/cameras on.

This was the warm-up guy, and he directed us through our applause and "oohs and aahs." We were fabulous under his direction.

The studio was bright and beautiful.

People were very busy in Martha's test kitchen, which is to the side of her studio. There were no food segments in the Etsy taping, though.

We all held our handmade items on our lap. This was awkward for me, as I had to smile and clap when directed to do so. I was fake-clapping so that I wouldn't wreck my basket! And thank goodness they didn't catch me on camera to my knowledge. I had frizzed up from the humid air in NY.

The stage crew was putting finishing touches to the set before the taping.

I was sitting in the front row, right in front of Martha. At one point they had to stop taping and do a re-do of her introduction to a segment, because her blouse button was popping. Oops. Between one of the segments she walked over and said hello to us, and checked out the items in the front row, so I was glad to be sitting where I was.

It was a great day! From the studio I took a taxi back to the train station and headed home. Thankfully my son's first baseball game was cancelled due to weather, so I didn't miss it. :)

The basket that I was holding during the show will be raffled off Thursday afternoon after the show airs. The information on the raffle is in my previous post.

Oh, I forgot. Everyone is asking me about the giveaways. We received a "Martha Stewart Show" bag with a $50 certificate toward any HP item. There was a 10-pack of her paints and a painting tool set with stencils, which my daughter Julia has claimed. There were two other types of paint in the bag that I haven't really looked at yet. One of the guests has a book published on polymer clay jewelry, so we got that book and three packages of clay. My daughter Sara is all about that. My son Adam? He was happy enough to see the picture of the train I was on. And my husband- well he was thrilled that I got to see Jenna Fischer on the streets of New York- she plays Pam on The Office, one of our favorite shows.

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comments:

wow. Sounded like a great day. I am so jeleous about you going to that ribbon shop. OMG!!! I so want to go there. I will be dvr'ing that episode. I am so proud of you. What an amazing time you must have had.

Congratulations, Kristen! This is all so exciting. Your mom is over the moon for you - I'm a friend of hers. :) I'm glad she shared this link. I hope this experience leads to even more success for you.